


Different stories

by Misila



Series: Gou/Isuzu [2]
Category: Free!
Genre: F/F, Family, Fluff, Gen, LGBTQ Themes, Light Angst, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-16 05:33:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16079474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misila/pseuds/Misila
Summary: In university, everyone seems too busy with their own problems to care about who others date.And Gou has no wish to be bullied, but she can’t help but think she arrived late at the party.





	Different stories

**Author's Note:**

> (Author may or may not have got more personal than initially intended.)

 

 

 

 

Gou awakens to her brother’s laughter.

She rolls onto her stomach, turns her head to watch the early morning lights bathing her bedroom. Downstairs she can hear Rin’s voice, the pauses where her imagination supplies Haruka’s quieter replies even though Gou can’t make out a single word.

Eventually she gathers the strength to sit up on the mattress, runs her fingers through red locks to push them back, tightening the duvet around her shoulders. She slides her legs over the edge of the bed, drags her white socks across the room as the front door closes; a bleary smile lifts her lips when her brother and Haruka start jogging down the street, blowing white clouds into an air not quite filled with sunlight yet.

They look happy.

Uneasiness embitters the heat in Gou’s chest, though; air leaves her lungs with a forced calm that does little to soothe her quickening pulse but at least keeps her heart from climbing to her throat.

 _It’s stupid_ , she tells herself, watching the two boys jog away. Her nervousness is unfounded, her fright pointless; what could anyone possibly object, when Rin has been dating the boy he changed schools for since before her graduation?

No, what has kept Gou quiet throughout the latest months isn’t fear for her family’s reaction.

It’s long after her brother and Haruka have disappeared between the buildings that she leaves the duvet on the bed, covering a still asleep Steve before walking out of the room and downstairs; in the kitchen she finds her mother pouring hot coffee in her mug. Three trays loaded with food lay on the countertop, next to each other.

“Good morning, Mum,” Gou greets; her mother’s kiss on her cheek tugs at the corners of her lips, but soon Matsuoka Miyako’s attention is back on the coffee; she empties the mug in two gulps. “You work today?”

“I’m covering a colleague until noon,” she explains, thumb quickly rubbing at Gou’s cheek to erase the trace of lipstick before she walks out of the kitchen. “Ah!” She steps back, entering Gou’s field of view again. “I don’t have time for making tea for Haru, do you mind doing it while they come back?”

“Leave it to me.” Gou’s smile grows when her mother blows a kiss for her before heading towards the entrance, is already filling the teapot with water by the time the door closes, leaving her alone in the house.

As she waits for the water to boil her gaze hops between the three trays, amused at how easy telling whose breakfast is each is.

Besides his dislike for coffee, Haruka has salmon from last night and two slices of pineapple; next to it, Rin’s steaming cup of coffee stands against a bowl of rice and a couple of fried eggs. Gou has never been too active, and eating right after waking up rarely does her any good; but since she started university she has become worryingly fond of coffee, even more so than her brother.

She supposes, when she pours hot water in a cup with a teabag, that the food will get cold before Rin and Haruka come back; the usual twenty minutes her brother takes to jog around the neighbourhood in the morning stretch when his boyfriend spends the night home, and now more than ever Gou is pleased about their competitiveness. Perhaps Rin will even forget about Gou’s words last night and act like he never heard them.

As she carries her tray to the table, as she pulls a chair back and sits down, Gou feels stupid.

She has it easy; her brother cut a path years ago, finished paving the way when he first brought Haruka to have dinner. Their mother never made any hurtful remark, that Gou remembers, and even if she had a problem she has had enough time to get over her prejudices.

Gou suspects the only problem will be Isuzu being a Mikoshiba, rather than her being a girl.

And yet, even after all these months of _whatever the hell she and Isuzu have been doing_ , she doesn’t know what to think.

Everyone she knows –not that she knows many people, even though she’s met a few since she moved to Tokyo– realised they weren’t straight in their adolescence.

She remembers the first Christmas her brother spent home after leaving for Australia, when their grandmother asked whether he had a girlfriend and he turned beet red and stuttered a barely understandable _I don’t want a girlfriend_ before stomping his way upstairs. She remembers the second Christmas, when after an identical exchange he grunted _I don’t even like girls_ too quietly for the old woman to hear, but loud enough for Gou to make out the words.

And she remembers her own laughter a couple of years ago, after Rin’s barely audible _I like Haru_ ; not because she found it funny, but because of the caution in her brother’s voice, as if it were supposed to be a secret.

Isuzu once told Gou she was teased by the very girl she had a crush on, that she’s glad her younger brother never got to experience something like that. In her second year of middle school, she recalled, pensive— right before her game finished loading and she beat the enemy in about seven seconds and a half.

It seems people have too much free time in middle school and high school, Gou muses. In university, everyone seems too busy with their own problems to care about who others date.

And Gou has no wish to be bullied, but she can’t help but think she arrived late at the party.

(That she doesn’t fully belong.)

She’s finishing her yogurt by the time Rin and Haruka are back, sweaty, breathless but with enough energy left to hiss sharp comebacks at each other. They trip along the hallway elbowing each other, arguing about something Gou doesn’t know about but is probably stupid, peek into the living room.

“Oh— Mum already left?” Rin exhales, pushing red locks off his face.

Gou nods, gaze flying to where Haruka’s face disappears quietly.

“She made breakfast… I think it’s still warm.”

“Good.” But when Rin turns around and doesn’t find Haruka next to him, his curiosity morphs into annoyance. “Like hell! I’m showering first; otherwise I’ll be filthy until noon…”

“Not if I arrive first,” Haruka argues.

Gou hears the familiar creaking of the first step of the stairs under his foot, but soon Rin runs out of her field of view and, judging by Haruka’s pout when he drags his feet back to the living room half a minute later, overtakes his boyfriend.

“Good morning,” she greets before bringing the teaspoon to her mouth with the last remains of yogurt. Haruka replies with a slight nod before sitting down, and it’s only then that Gou notices the dark bags clinging to his eyes, emphasising the blue of his gaze. “Did you not sleep well?”

“We went to sleep late,” Haruka explains, gaze drifting to the ceiling when Rin turns on the tap upstairs. He covers a yawn with the back of his hand. “I didn’t think Rin would still want to run,” he adds quietly, as if to himself.

“Onii-chan only skips it when he’s sick,” Gou comments, putting the container down to reach for the banana. “What time did you two go to bed at, anyway? I think I heard you upstairs before falling asleep.”

At that, Haruka only stares; and even though his expression is undecipherable most of the time Gou would swear for a few seconds he’s at a loss for words.

“We were playing videogames.”

Upstairs, the water stops running.

Now it’s Gou the one who finds her mind blank.

She doesn’t look away from Haruka, and he doesn’t either; silence stretches between the two of them for the whole minute it takes for Rin to soap himself up.

Gou nods. “…Ah.”

Haruka nods back.

“Hm.”

(Gou shouldn’t have asked.)

She hopes Haruka also feels like a couple of years pass until her brother walks back downstairs, clad in an old tracksuit, with a towel around his shoulders. Haruka jumps to his feet as if he had been electrocuted, heads out of the living room and upstairs in quick steps.

“…Did something happen?” Rin mutters, glancing back curiously. Gou offers a shrug, not exactly eager to pry into that particular area of her brother’s privacy. “Well,” he walks towards the kitchen, brings his and Haruka’s trays and sits down where his boyfriend was just a couple of seconds ago, “what about yesterday?”

_…Oh._

There it is.

Gou bites on her banana to buy time, but since Rin is waiting for Haruka to start eating it really doesn’t do much on her favour. Her brother’s eyes, the same as their mother’s, keep focused on her in an unusual display of patience; he only reaches to take a grain of rice every now and then.

Eventually Gou gives up.

She breathes out through her nose after swallowing, trying her best to come to terms with the fact that her time is up.

“I lied. It was a date,” she blurts out. Her brother raises his eyebrows, then frowns; and Gou laughs because she wants to evaporate and she knows she’s overreacting and everything about the situation is ridiculous. “With a girl. Because I like girls. I think.”

Rin’s eyes widen; he draws back, as if trying to escape the torrent of words Gou can’t help but shoot like a submachine.

“A-Ah… Okay,” he manages, shaking his head as if trying to get rid of water stuck in his ears. “I… Okay. Great.” Rin scratches the back of his neck, then shakes his head once more. “No, no. Wait, you _think_?”

Gou bites onto her lower lip, nods; her gaze falls to her nearly finished breakfast.

“I don’t know if I didn’t realise or I just… didn’t like any girl until now,” she adds, quietly.

Sousuke, her brother’s serious and snarky best friend, was Gou’s first crush. She liked several of her classmates during high school, and she dated Nagisa for a couple of months in her last year… But when Gou thinks about all the girls she has got close to throughout the years she just doesn’t know. Doesn’t know whether she liked them as friend or something else, can’t recall if, before Isuzu, her remarks on how pretty her friends looked came from admiration, jealousy or attraction.

She doesn’t even know if she would have realised she likes Isuzu, had the middle Mikoshiba never admitted her own sexuality— had she never asked for a kiss.

“…Gou?” She glances back up at her brother, her teeth sinking deeper into her lip when she finds concern there. “Do you… still like guys?”

“Yeah.” At least there is something she’s sure of. “I think I just never gave it much thought, really…” Gou toys with a red lock absent-mindedly. “Never.”

Rin tilts his head to the side.

“And what’s the problem with that? If you didn’t like a girl, then…”

“It’s like I lack something.” Gou pulls at her hair lightly. “I mean… Everyone I’ve asked realised when they were younger, and they all say they had a hard time in middle school or high school… But I didn’t—”

“Just so you know,” Rin interrupts. He raises his voice, but there is no anger in his words, “you didn’t miss out on anything worthwhile.” He tears his gaze off her, glares down at Haruka’s lukewarm breakfast. “Really. People can be real assholes when you’re a bit different.”

For nearly a whole minute, Gou says nothing. Her gaze glides down the uneasiness in her brother’s frown, the thin line of his lips. She halts at the tension coiling in his shoulders and the stiffness of his posture, and then she looks at her trembling hand grabbing the half-eaten banana.

It’s something she has suspected for years, yet never gathered the courage to directly ask her brother.

And it hurts, but that pain isn’t hers.

“I don’t envy you,” she mutters, not daring to look up. “But it’s like— like it doesn’t count, because I can’t relate to half everyone says.”

“…I think you’re lucky,” Rin argues, “and I’m glad you are.”

When Gou finally looks at her brother, she finds a smile lighting up his expression, sharp angles softened by the wet hair sticking to his face.

“I meant to tell you sooner.” Beneath the table, Rin kicks her. “Hey!”

“Whenever you feel like it.” Her brother grabs another grain of rice, briefly glances back upon hearing the tell-tale creaking of the stairs preceding Haruka’s arrival. “Took you long enough, Haru! I was starting to worry you had drowned.”

Haruka drags his feet inside the living room, huddled up in clothes that undoubtedly belong to Rin, and sits next to his boyfriend.

“The water never hurts me.” It hasn’t done much to brighten him up, either. “Thanks for the food,” he mutters before reaching for his chopsticks.

Rin rolls his eyes, but his smile is visible even when he starts eating.

“Whatever. Well, Gou, how is she?”

If it were anyone else sitting next to her brother, Gou would change the topic. But not only is Haruka the most discreet person she knows; he’s also about to fall asleep before even finishing his breakfast.

So Gou talks about Isuzu, about how she loves going to the arcade and is really good, the way her eyes glint when she’s about to dive in the pool and their shared love for muscles. Rin doesn’t take finding out who Isuzu is related to too badly, only asks if she isn’t too loud and raises a sceptical eyebrow when Gou assures she isn’t.

“…At least it’s not Captain,” Rin mutters, relief clear in his voice. “She isn’t into bugs, is she?”

Gou can’t help but laugh as she shakes her head, covering her mouth when her brother shushes her with a glare.

By then, both Rin and Haruka have finished eating; they have moved to the sofas and Haruka’s head rests on Rin’s lap, his breathing slow as he makes up for the sleep he lost last night.

“Do you mind if I invite Isuzu for dinner tomorrow?”

Rin’s glower melts in a smile. “Not at all! I’d like to meet her before leaving. And Mum loves having guests.”

“Haruka-senpai can come, too,” Gou suggests. “If you let him sleep tonight.”

“If I let _him_ —” Rin narrows his eyes, heat crawling up his neck as he glances at his very asleep boyfriend— “what did he tell you? He’s the one obsessed with catching that stupid Pokémon. I’m just a victim.”

Gou forces herself to close her mouth.

“Playing videogames,” she recalls Haruka’s words, doesn’t really know what to do with them now. “Ah, then…” She stands up, but before she can get too far her brother grabs her wrist. “I’m going to call her to ask if—… What?”

Rin pulls her down, into half a hug with the hand that isn’t tangled in Haruka’s still wet hair.

“I’m happy for you,” he whispers in her ear. “Really.”

Gou feels her grin is too wide when she straightens up, but her brother’s looks even wider.

“Me too.”

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Give me a bisexual and I'll make a fic. Or two. Or... I don't know, but I'm enjoying this.
> 
> If you liked the story, you can leave a comment and tell me your thoughts!


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